Formlabs Enters the Desktop 3D Printer Market

Formlabs has just rolled out their FORM 1 3d printer on Kickstarter. They have become fully funded in just 2.5 hours ($100,000 goal)! There are some exceptional differences in this machine compared to the typical FDM & DLP printers out there. This is SL based technology (stereolithography) using a $10 Blu-Ray laser (same as in hi-def DVD players) for photo exposure versus a $10,000 laser typically found in SLA machines. FORM 1 boasts build resolutions of 25 micron (.001″) in Z & 300 micron (.012″) feature details. Build envelop is listed at 125 x 125 x 160mm (4.9 x 4.9 x 6.5 inches). This is a substantial improvement over other desktop printers in its class. Although this price tier is sold out (higher priced tiers remain at time of this writing) the starting price for the machine was placed at $2,299. This project is exceptionally well put together & the machine looks to be at a considerably mature design stage. Formlabs states that they have built 7 generations of prototypes & a production run of alpha machines. They have developed their own software package for build setups & support generation which does not look to be opensource. No mention of future software/hardware support but the project is already a go so we’ll see how the company & product develops. Exciting stuff, Love it!